Fate Intervenes
by Sarah1281
Summary: A chance encounter in the Luxembourg causes Marius to realize that, once again, he's doing everything all wrong. It's only fair that Javert gets to ruin one of Valjean's plans for once. AU.


Fate Intervenes

Disclaimer: I do not own Les Misérables_. _

Was there anything better than this? Strolling through the Luxembourg with his beloved wife on his arm and basking in the glow of being young and happy. Marius didn't know how romantic other people found the garden but it did not matter to him because it was the place where he and Cosette had first seen each other, first loved each other, and had first grown to know the other's soul before even speaking one word. It still astonished him even now that such things were possible.

He avoided the Luxembourg most days because, in addition to Cosette, it reminded him inexorably of Courfeyrac and the others dead too soon at the barricade. And that, in turn, led to his less than healthy (or so Cosette had gently put it) obsession with who had rescued him from the fate he had irrationally chosen for himself. He was, she reminded him, doing everything in his power to find that man and dwelling on it would not speed up the process.

Cosette chased all of that away and let him see the Luxembourg through the lens of life and of love. It was probably a vain hope but he rather liked to imagine that the people here, who had once seen him in his 'shabby poet attire' (to quote, strangely enough, both Courfeyrac _and _Cosette), could recognize him now and see how his life had changed.

Unfortunately, his weren't the only ghosts in this garden. Cosette's eyes strayed, as they always did, to the bench she had habitually shared with Jean Valjean. Whenever they came here, Marius always resolved to avoid the spot and yet somehow they always ended up walking right past it. Who would have thought that it would be so difficult to wean her from her affection for the convict she claimed as 'father', even with the man's full cooperation? At least she had – reluctantly – stopped calling him father.

He really did not understand it. When he had separated from his _actual _grandfather (for very valid reasons that were still less serious than saving anyone from a tainted and unworthy presence) he had not missed the man and would have never returned if not for Cosette. Well, Cosette and his mysterious barricade savior. Who would have thought that a perfectly respectable man like his grandfather would prove less devotion-inspiring than a common criminal like Valjean? But then, he was hardly Cosette and she had taken to his grandfather in an instant, completely unaware of the terrible things that the man had once said about her.

"I'm worried about Monsieur Jean," Cosette said, sighing.

This was the last thing he wanted to discuss (he briefly wondered if he could organically change the subject to his poor, murdered friends as even _that_ was better than talking about this) but he had to tread carefully here. It was one thing for Cosette to realize that there was no love lost between himself and Valjean because that was perfectly natural even without Valjean's evil past and the secret nature of his and Cosette's courtship. No one wanted her to realize that she was being slowly separated from the man who had raised her, however. After all these weeks and an almost embarrassingly lack of subtlety brought about by Valjean's refusal to recognize where he was unwanted, Marius was finally daring to hope that the separation was complete and all that remained was for Cosette to adjust.

"Are you?" he asked rhetorically.

Cosette nodded seriously, a frown making its way across her face. "I have not seen him in more than a week."

Yes and what a glorious and peaceful week it had been. It almost made him feel like he was a normal man with a normal marriage and no supposedly dead convict hidden in the proverbial closet.

"Monsieur Jean has gone away before," Marius reminded her. "Remember? Every few months since you first left the convent, you told me."

Cosette nodded but she still looked troubled. "I never knew what he was doing but he was never gone for more than three or four days. We have never been apart for this long and I…I do not like it."

He hated to see her hurt but this was a necessary pain designed specifically to save her from further pain in the future that prolonged contact with Valjean would inevitably lead to.

"Well," Marius said slowly, trying to figure out what he would say if he weren't nearly positive that Valjean had not actually gone anywhere and he did not know what the man was doing and why. "Back then he was leaving you alone with only Toussaint to care for and protect you and now he knows that you are safe with me and he has no need to hurry."

His head began to pound the way it always did when he was forced to acknowledge what a good father Valjean had been to Cosette because the only explanation he could think of was that it was his angel's influence. It compelled even a base thief and murderer to aspire to goodliness and that was a little intimidating. Cosette had always had that impact on _him_ but then he was no convict.

"I suppose that is true but then he never told me he was leaving," Cosette protested. "And I do not want him around for what he can do for me!"

"Of course not, that was not what I was trying to say," Marius assured her. "It's just that you are a grown woman, Cosette, and no longer reliant on his presence so perhaps he thought that letting you know was unnecessary. Perhaps he can explain when he returns."

"I just can't shake the feeling that he is pulling away from me," Cosette admitted, looking at him as if she were uncertain of his reaction.

No fool was his Cosette.

"He's not pulling away from you any more than is natural," Marius lied. There was nothing _natural _about the fact that his little embodiment of light, his Cosette, should even know a figure of the rankest darkness like Valjean, let alone care for him. "What you're feeling is perfectly normal. It was just you and he for so many years and now you are a married woman and so things had to change. There was no other way."

"He was supposed to live with us," Cosette said wistfully.

Marius shivered unconsciously, fully aware of just what a bullet he had dodged there. Thank God for that one strange fit of honesty Valjean had experienced that had put that matter quite to rest.

"Cosette," he said gently. "I'm afraid that we made all those plans without consulting him at all and he does get _some _say in where he should live. As much as he cares for you, he clearly does not wish to leave the Rue de l'Homme Arme and you must accept that."

Another sigh. "I am trying, Marius."

They then spoke of other things but Marius knew that the matter of Valjean was not forgotten. With Cosette it never was.

All of a sudden the world seemed to freeze. There was a man walking by at some distance away. He did not seem to notice Marius or the sudden tumult he had thrown his world into.

"I really hope that they work things out," Cosette was saying. "They are both so kind, really, and it would be dreadful if something like that were to get between them."

Marius, having not heard a word she said since he saw the man, nodded absently. "Cosette, do you recognize that man over there?"

Cosette looked at where he was pointing and squinted. "That police inspector? No, I don't believe I know him. Why?"

Marius just shook his head. "Just…stay here, will you? I'll just be a moment, I need to see something."

He barely waited to see Cosette's puzzled nod before taking off.

He wasn't sure, of course, he couldn't possibly be sure but he _suspected _and that was enough to send him running.

When he got close enough, growing more certain by the second, he called out, "Inspector Javert!"

The man turned to face him. "Yes?"

Marius stopped breathing. Inspector Javert, the man who had once proven himself a very good man by saving…Valjean, actually, and who Valjean had repaid by murdering him in cold blood the night of the barricades in the guise of an eager revolutionary executing a spy. And yet he was here. How could this be?

"Did you have any particular reason for calling my name or did you just wish to stare at me?" Javert demanded.

Marius blinked and came back to himself. "No, I, uh, I'm just surprised to see you, is all."

"Why should you be?" Javert asked. "Do you know me?" The tone implied that he rather doubted it and he certainly did not know Marius.

"I do, sort of," Marius replied. "That is, we met once. It was more than a year ago. I told you that my neighbors in the Gorbeau House, the Jondrettes, were going to attack a philanthropic gentleman and you promised to be there and break it up. You even loaned me two pistols."

A light entered Javert's eyes. "You never returned those."

Marius coughed awkwardly. "Yes, well, they were lost."

Javert did not look pleased. "At the barricade? To think that my pistols were used to kill good men trying to defend the streets of Paris…"

"Well…yes," Marius said sheepishly. "I'm sorry if that bothers you but they saved lives."

"Lives that undoubtedly ended soon afterwards," Javert said pointedly.

"That is true," Marius conceded. "But they lived a few more hours and I believe that that was worth it."

Javert gave him a look that made it clear just what he thought of that. "Why did you stop me if you were not going to return my pistols? I had not expected to see you again after you lost your nerve and stayed away from your room the night of the ambush."

Marius drew himself up, offended. "I did not run! I was right there the whole time."

"Really," Javert said skeptically. "And you didn't lose the pistols yet, either. I do wonder how you failed to summon me. Did you just forget the signal?"

Marius flushed. "No, it wasn't that. I was just…unsure of what to do."

"You couldn't figure out when to call me?" Javert guessed.

"I…I went to go see you knowing only that the 'Jondrettes' were going to attack somebody and so my way forward was clear," Marius explained. "But after the man arrived and had been taken prisoner but while I was still waiting to get more information like you said to do, Jondrette revealed that his name was actually Thénardier."

"What difference does that make?" Javert demanded. "You'll find that most criminals use false names."

"Thénardier saved my father's life at the Battle of Waterloo," Marius told him.

Javert stared at him for a moment. "Are you…quite sure?"

"I wasn't there, obviously," Marius said, having trouble believing it himself. "But my father seemed quite certain of it. We were rather estranged and…Well, I'm sure you don't care about that but the last thing he asked me to do was to do a good turn for Thénardier should I ever meet him to repay the act of saving my father's life."

"It was probably an accidental saving," Javert mused. "Or perhaps he did not save your father at all but, in the confusion, your father thought he had. One such as him would be eager to claim credit for saving a life if he could."

Marius shrugged. "I really don't know."

"But what does this have to do with anything?" Javert asked again. "Your father's savior or not, this man was committing a crime and interrogation revealed that they were going to kill this man."

Marius was feeling a little judged. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to decide between being ungrateful to your father's savior by getting him arrested or letting an innocent man die? Especially when said man is the father of the woman you love?" Belatedly, he realized that he was more-or-less admitting his connection to Valjean but perhaps Javert had not known that Valjean had been the man who had escaped that room. He had been gone by the time that Javert had thought to look to him, after all. And his unthinking use of the phrase 'an innocent man' was sure to throw him off as well.

Javert shook his head. "No," he said immediately. "Because that is not a difficult choice as well. It is not _ingratitude_ not to let someone kill another person."

"Well I wasn't sure," Marius said defensively.

"I have no idea how."

"Never mind about that," Marius said uncomfortably. "How are you even still alive?"

"You will have to be more specific," Javert told him. "Technically, I am alive because I have not died. When did you think I should have perished?"

"I didn't think that you _should _have, it's just that at the barricade Val…Monsieur…oh, you have to have recognized him!" Marius exclaimed but still he went no further.

Javert could see what Marius had stopped himself from saying. "Valjean. Yes, I did."

"He asked to be able to execute you. He was at the barricades solely to get revenge on you for hunting him all those years. He was specifically given permission to execute you when Enjolras was just going to have whoever was the last to leave the room do it," Marius babbled.

Javert eyed him for a long moment. "You are a stupid boy."

"What?" Marius asked, drawing back, affronted.

"To begin with, would you even have cared that I died had I not been the inspector that you met when you reported that ambush?" Javert asked.

"I…When I realized that you were our captured spy I went to try and convince Valjean – though I did not know it was him at the time – to spare you but it was too late. But once I realized that he was there solely for revenge and not because he believed in the cause and Jehan Prouvaire was executed before we could try to exchange you for him that changed things."

"It changed nothing," Javert disagreed. "An illegal murder of a government official is an illegal murder of a government official no matter what the reason. If it would not have bothered you if your Enjolras had done it himself then it should not have bothered you if Valjean did it. Though given that it would carry a death sentence, both should have bothered you."

"I can't see it that way," Marius said apologetically. "But how did you survive when Valjean was there for vengeance?"

Javert rolled his eyes. "And that, right there, is the biggest reason you are a fool. He clearly was _not _there for vengeance or I would be dead."

"Then why did he ask Enjolras to kill you?" Marius challenged. "And after you saved his life, too!"

Javert frowned. "When did I save his life?"

"Valjean…may or may not have been that man that the Jondrettes kidnapped," Marius confided. "Not that I knew that at the time!"

"So that was why he ran," Javert said, looking satisfied. "As for why he asked to kill me, it was because he knew that anyone else there really _would_ kill me for motivations you would call 'noble.' He knew that I recognized him and he knew that I would not rest until I brought him to justice. He not only let me go but he gave me his address and promised to be there should he survive the fall of the barricade."

Marius could only stare at him in shock.

"I…But…_why_?" he asked finally.

Javert looked rather annoyed. "The answer escaped me for weeks on end but I finally realized what it was. Jean Valjean has spent the last seventeen years campaigning for sainthood and there can be no greater act of self-sacrifice than saving someone that you know will destroy you." He paused. "Though I am not entirely convinced that a desire to annoy me was not a part of it as well."

"Sainthood?" Marius repeated in disbelief.

"I was under the impression that everybody who knew Valjean knew about that habit of his," Javert replied. "Are you not well acquainted?"

"I know that he gives generously to the poor," Marius admitted. "And then there's Co-that was what made it so difficult for me to accept that he was a convict in the first place. But doing good does not prevent one from committing crimes and even someone who might shy away from committing theft could still be willing to murder out of vengeance."

Javert gave him a disgusted look. "Really? You believe that someone who has a moral problem with _stealing_ is perfectly fine committing murder?"

Marius realized that his ponderings on the subject of his sort-of father-in-law sounded a lot better in his head. "Are we speaking of the same Jean Valjean, the convict?"

"I had difficulty accepting that, too," Javert commiserated. "But you see the evidence standing here before you. You must know, too, that Valjean asking to kill me was the only way I was leaving that barricade alive."

"I would have-" Marius started to say.

"I heard everything going on around me while I was a prisoner, for all that I did not expect to survive, and though I did not personally witness the incident I heard talk of how Enjolras had been asked not to kill various people and he did not listen," Javert interrupted. "Whatever you might not have wanted would not make a difference."

"Then why was he even there in the first place?" Marius demanded, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Are you really this thick?" Javert asked, sounding pained.

"You keep calling me stupid and you won't even tell me what it is that I should see that I do not!" Marius cried out, frustrated.

"I would not expect you to remember this as you were more dead than alive," Javert admitted slowly. "I was following your Thénardier and he had just gone into the sewer when who should come out by Valjean?"

The sewers? That would explain why he hadn't been found by the National Guard but he couldn't imagine how Valjean had managed to make his way through there. He had often heard that it was a labyrinth down there and none of the maps were ever quite right.

"I told him I was going to arrest him and he said certainly but he begged me for just one more hour because there was an idiot boy he had to see to safety first," Javert said, shaking his head in irritation at the memory. "I had my fiacre take him there myself."

Marius started. "Are you telling me…_did Jean Valjean save my life that night_?"

"I was there, too," Javert said dryly.

"Did he?" Marius demanded, ignoring him. "I have to know! I have been searching everywhere! Could it really have been…?"

"I assure you, he cared for nothing more, not even his own freedom, than saving your life," Javert assured him. "Though why I do not know."

Marius did.

"But…he's a bad man!" he protested weakly.

"Is this what it was like talking to me?" Javert wondered idly. "If Valjean felt even a little bit of what I'm feeling right now, and since it was his life he likely felt it stronger, then I do admire his self-restraint…"

"What about Monsieur Madeleine?" Marius cried triumphantly, having finally found something that he thought would show that he was in the right.

"How does _Monsieur Madeleine _in any way condemn Valjean?" Javert asked, bewildered.

"Monsieur Madeleine was the mayor of Montreuil, an ex-convict who became a legitimate businessman and gave most of his money away to help everyone around him," Marius informed Javert.

"Did he really?"

"He was practically a saint and was even willing to go back to prison for life to save another man who had been mistaken for him," he continued. "He's probably the best person I've ever heard of."

"I have yet to hear how any of this condemns Valjean," Javert said bluntly.

"What kind of 'saint' goes around and steals the fortune of a man like that?" Marius demanded, outraged.

It was quiet for a long moment.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"Kidding? I'm not kidding and that's a perfectly valid question!" Marius insisted. "Or did he decide to become a saint _after _he stole the money? Did he think that Monsieur Madeleine wouldn't need it while he was in the galleys for life?" He paused. "He probably wouldn't, actually, but that doesn't make it better."

"Just how many convicts turned saints do you think France _has_?" Javert demanded. "I have difficulty enough dealing with _one _of them and if there were any more I would be in the Seine right now, I assure you."

Marius took a moment to process that.

"Are you saying that Monsieur Madeleine was not a saint?" he asked hopefully.

Javert narrowed his eyes at him. "I am saying that he is Jean Valjean."

"He can't be," Marius said desperately.

"Why not?" Javert asked reasonably. "I think you'll find that there were several newspaper articles written at the time that confirm this and I myself was there and played a hand in his arrest."

"But…Monsieur Madeleine died in prison, rescuing someone from drowning," Marius argued.

"Jean Valjean was supposed to be in prison for five years but his four escape attempts made that nineteen," Javert replied.

Marius mouthed the word 'four.'

"It is no surprise that he escaped again when he had little Cosette to rescue and raise and being able to fake his own death escaping _and _saving a life in the process would have been just too good of an opportunity to pass up," Javert speculated.

Marius was growing more horrified by the second, not at Valjean but at his own actions. But Valjean had not told him any of this! He had implied quite the opposite.

"He never told me any of this," he muttered. "I asked him a dozen times about the barricade and he pretended that he wasn't even there! After he confessed I thought it was because of your murder but now I know that cannot be so. And he didn't mention any of this during his confession!"

"Back when he was the mayor of Montreuil, the citizens experienced a series of break-ins," Javert said, apropos of nothing. "No one knew what to make of it because only the poorest houses were visited and, instead of taking anything, money was left in the house. Valjean has this pathological need not to let people know he's helping them. He seems to think it doesn't count if he is thanked."

Marius couldn't say that he understood that at all but he had heard enough and suddenly he couldn't stand there any longer. "I've got to go. Thank you."

"Hmph."

Marius turned back. "Inspector, why didn't you arrest Valjean?"

Javert sighed. "You've heard his history. I held out as long as I could against his saintliness, far longer than most would have. But ultimately…would you have been able to arrest him?"

Satisfied, Marius hurried back to Cosette who had found some birds and some crumbs with which to feed them.

"Is everything alright?" she asked after taking one look at his face.

"Yes, everything's fine," Marius assured her. "I was thinking, how about we leave early today?"

"To do what?" Cosette asked curiously.

"I was thinking about what you said. Maybe you're right, maybe something is the matter," Marius said, trying to sound casual. "We should call on your father and make sure everything's okay."

Cosette's face lit up and Marius fell in love with her all over again. "Yes, I would like to see my father."

And, taking her hand, he set off to go correct a grave mistake he had made but fortunately caught in time.

And maybe later, in private, he'd get a chance to yell at his father-in-law as well. Who confessed the bad parts and left out all the good they had done anyway? Really, this was only seventy-five percent his fault and he would not let anybody, even Valjean who he was suddenly convinced was secretly judging him, convince him otherwise.

Review Please!


End file.
